A Fully Nonmetallic Gas Turbine Engine Enabled by Additive Manufacturing, Part II: Additive Manufacturing and Characterization of Polymer Composites

This publication is the second part of the three part report of the project entitled "A Fully Nonmetallic Gas Turbine Engine Enabled by Additive Manufacturing" funded by NASA Aeronautics Research Institute (NARI). The objective of this project was to conduct additive manufacturing to produce aircraft engine components by Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), using commercially available polyetherimides-Ultem 9085 and experimental Ultem 1000 mixed with 10% chopped carbon fiber. A property comparison between FDM-printed and injection molded coupons for Ultem 9085, Ultem 1000 resin and the fiber-filled composite Ultem 1000 was carried out. Furthermore, an acoustic liner was printed from Ultem 9085 simulating conventional honeycomb structured liners and tested in a wind tunnel. Composite compressor inlet guide vanes were also printed using fiber-filled Ultem 1000 filaments and tested in a cascade rig. The fiber-filled Ultem 1000 filaments and composite vanes were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and acid digestion to determine the porosity of FDM-printed articles which ranged from 25 to 31%. Coupons of Ultem 9085, experimental Ultem 1000 composites and XH6050 resin were tested at room temperature and 400F to evaluate their corresponding mechanical properties. A preliminary modeling was also initiated to predict the mechanical properties of FDM-printed Ultem 9085 coupons in relation to varied raster angles and void contents, using the GRC-developed MAC/GMC program

A Fully Non-Metallic Gas Turbine Engine Enabled by Additive Manufacturing Part I: System Analysis, Component Identification, Additive Manufacturing, and Testing of Polymer Composites

The research and development activities reported in this publication were carried out under NASA Aeronautics Research Institute (NARI) funded project entitled "A Fully Nonmetallic Gas Turbine Engine Enabled by Additive Manufacturing." The objective of the project was to conduct evaluation of emerging materials and manufacturing technologies that will enable fully nonmetallic gas turbine engines. The results of the activities are described in three part report. The first part of the report contains the data and analysis of engine system trade studies, which were carried out to estimate reduction in engine emissions and fuel burn enabled due to advanced materials and manufacturing processes. A number of key engine components were identified in which advanced materials and additive manufacturing processes would provide the most significant benefits to engine operation. The technical scope of activities included an assessment of the feasibility of using additive manufacturing technologies to fabricate gas turbine engine components from polymer and ceramic matrix composites, which were accomplished by fabricating prototype engine components and testing them in simulated engine operating conditions. The manufacturing process parameters were developed and optimized for polymer and ceramic composites (described in detail in the second and third part of the report). A number of prototype components (inlet guide vane (IGV), acoustic liners, engine access door) were additively manufactured using high temperature polymer materials. Ceramic matrix composite components included turbine nozzle components. In addition, IGVs and acoustic liners were tested in simulated engine conditions in test rigs. The test results are reported and discussed in detail

Design, Assembly, and Testing of a Propellant Feed System for the Lithium Lorentz Force Accelerator

The Lithium Lorentz Force Accelerator (LiLFA) is a magnetoplasmadynamic thruster (MPDT) at Princeton University¿s Electric Propulsion and Plasma Dynamics Labora-tory. The current piston-based lithium propellant feed system, though accurate, has proved to be buggy and unreliable. Therefore, a feed system using an electromagnetic pump has been designed to replace the piston-based pump. Operation of the pump has been tested using gallium as a surrogate metal, but the pump failed to achieve the required ¿ow rate precision. A laser interferometer-based level measurement system was designed in parallel, but due to signal noise it was not useful as an instrument. Further work remains to determine whether an electromagnetic pump would be an e¿ective replacement for the piston-based pump

Improving our knowledge on the hydro-chemo-mechanical behaviour of fault zones in the context of CO2 geological storage

Fault systems can play a significant role regarding several risk issues related to CO2-injection-induced mechanical perturbations: fluid flow enhancement or compartmentalization within the reservoir, loss of integrity of the reservoir-caprock systems, potential triggering of seismicity and generation of new leakage pathways or permeability barriers. Several methods exist to model hydro-mechanical behaviour of fault zones. A first "conventional" approach aims at evaluating the fault response by directly post-processing the results of the large-scale coupled hydro-mechanical simulations. This consists of: estimating the changes of the effective stress field in the reservoir-caprock system during CO2 injection; computing changes of shear and normal stresses acting on the fault plane; comparing them to a fault reactivation criterion. However, this approach does not account for the effects of the presence of the fault on the stress and pressure field in the surrounding rock matrix. More sophisticated (and physically more realistic) modeling strategies have been proposed, which explicitly integrate the fault zone as a distinct element in the large-scale simulation, i.e. by representing it as a linear discontinuity with various hydraulic and mechanical properties. From a CO2 storage perspective, such a model still remains limited regarding two issues: 1. Faults are complex and heterogeneous geological systems, which do not correspond to discrete surfaces as already postulated by many authors. A fault zone is composed of an inner core made of fine material, often impermeable, and where slip is concentrated. It is surrounded by an outer damage zone that often acts as a hydraulic pathway, because of the presence of a fracture network, whose characteristics (fractures' orientation, connectivity, lengths, density, number of fractures' families, etc.) depend on the distance to the core; 2. Chemical interactions (dissolution and precipitation processes, chemically-induced weakening, etc.) between CO2-enriched brine and the minerals constituting the fault zone. can affect the mechanical and transport properties of the faulted/fractured system. In particular, chemo-mechanical processes can either stabilize the system if the compaction rate is increased or destabilize it if new micro-fractures are created. The FISIC project intends to overcome those limitations by accurately modelling the hydro-chemo-mechanical (HCM) complexity of a fault zone. The main goal is to provide appropriate theoretical and numerical models for accurate evaluation of fault stability in the context of CO2 geological storage, i.e. improving the stability analysis of a fault both undertaking pressure increase and alteration due to the presence of an acidic fluid. Four research questions are addressed and the progress regarding each of them is presented: 1. How to represent a fault zone in a tectonic setting, which has a priori been selected far from major potentially seismically-active faults, i.e. a moderate-to-low-deformed setting; 2. What are the fractures' organization within the damage zones of faults, i.e. their spatial distribution? 3. What are the dominant chemo-mechanical processes resulting from aqueous CO2 in fractured/faulted systems? 4. How to integrate (numerically) the hydro-chemo-mechanical (HCM) behaviour of fault zones in large-scale (reservoir or basin-scale) simulations? Regarding the first and second question, a geostatistical approach is adopted based on observations of fault structures at the Cirque de Navacelles. This site, located in the late Jurassic platform carbonates of Languedoc (southern France), can be considered a good analogue for CO2 storage reservoir. The third question is addressed at laboratory scale focusing on the CO2(aqueous)-induced effect on: i. the slow growth of cracks (subcritical fracturing) and their healing; ii. the degradation of mechanical properties such as fracture toughness or shear strength. Finally, the fourth question is numerically addressed by relying on: i. advanced meshing tools developed for converting complex geometries to finite element models; ii. analysis of fracture propagation condition within multiphase fractured porous media; iii. the rheological behavior derived from the experimental study